Poverty among elderly

(Malaysian experience)

GOBINATH A/L MARIMOTHU BF094891

VENOJINII A/P IRULLAPPAN BF094934
INTRODUCTION

Ministry of Health Malaysia classify those 60 and above as

elderly people.
Poverty, as measured by the Poverty Line Income (PLI)
measures the capacity of households to meet the minimum
requirement for food and non-food consumption. The PLI is
not a static measure but changes over time, with adjustment
to the changes in the standard of living. A household is
considered poor if the households gross income falls below
the national PLI. The PLI was RM760, RM1, 050 and RM910 for
Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak respectively
(Economic Planning Unit (EPU),
Extreme poverty. These are households which fail to earn
enough to fulfil basic survival needs such as food, clothing and
shelter. Households that fall into this category earn average
monthly incomes of less than RM460 in Peninsular Malaysia,
less than RM630 in Sabah and less than RM590 in Sarawak
FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO
POVERTY AMONG ELDERLY IN
MALAYSIA

MEDICAL COST
 DEPENDENCY IN OLD AGE
Normal social attitude considers the old people as handicapped
incapable of living their lives without sound support, and totally
dependent upon the assistance of family members. This link between
old age and dependence is structured by social taboos and
organization.
LACK OF SKILLS
Lack of skills was also identified among the causes of chronic poverty
among the elderly. This was attributed to their inability to access
formal schooling during their early years of life due to poverty and
ignorance of the benefits of education by the parents
 LACK OF SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEMS
Currently, the only social security system in Malaysia for the elderly is
the pension scheme for the former public servants. Most of the workers
in Malaysia are outside the government public service and thus are not
potential beneficiaries for this scheme.
UNEMPLOYMENT
Exclusion from work can also have serious deleterious consequences
that significantly reduce the quality of life of older people. Inability to be
productive or earn sufficient income to meet the basic necessities of life
(for self and own families) for most of the time is a prime example of
the severe nature of chronic poverty
 LOW AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY, FLUCTUATING PRICES
AND LACK OF MARKETS
The low agricultural labour productivity was attributed to the
aging process, which drains physical energies and hence affects
ones ability to cultivate the agricultural fields. Natural calamities
like drought and crop pests were also cited among causes of
chronic poverty in particularly rural areas, through their impact
on agricultural yields.
IMPACTS OF POVERTY AMONG
ELDERLY IN MALAYSIA
HEALTH
Diseases are very common in people living in poverty because they
lack the resources to maintain a healthy living environment. They
are almost always lacking in nutritious foods, which decreases
their bodies ability to fight off diseases. Sanitation conditions are
usually very low, increasing the chance of contracting a disease.
 SOCIETY
Many elderly people living in poverty are homeless, which puts them
on the streets. There also seems to be a connection between poverty
and crime. When people are unemployed and homeless, social unrest
may take over and lead to increases in crime. For example in Malaysia
many crime cases related to food stealing reported. The elderly people
who live in poverty tend to take the risk to steal raw foods from the
shops due to the financial problems that they are facing.
ECONOMY
Mainly, the number of people living in poverty influences employment
rates heavily. Without an education, people are unlikely to find a
paying job. Unemployment hinders a country from developing into a
strong economic system
 IMPLEMENTATION TO SOLVE
POVERTY AMONG ELDERLY
PEOPLE IN MALAYSIA

Credit facilities should thus be extended to the elderly

Adult functional literacy programs should be heightened to
enhance skills development, which is a pre-requisite for poverty
reduction
There is need for free and specialized geriatric services to be
provided in at least Government health units in order to address
the health care needs of older persons.
Government at all levels should devise ways of creating support
systems for the elderly. Institution of government support
systems would be an avenue of minimizing vulnerability of the
elderly particularly to the various forms of poverty.
 CONCLUSION

Population ageing in Malaysia has raised concerns with regard to the

ability of the current social protection system to provide adequate
support for the elderly. This support is crucial not only because of an
increasing proportion of the elderly population but more importantly,
many informal workers are not covered by the social safety net despite
measures to expand coverage to this group, such as the introduction of
the 1Malaysia Retirement Scheme recently. The success of this scheme
and the new cash assistance programs such as the Bantuan Rakyat
1Malaysia (BR1M) remains to be seen. It is about time to revise the
availability social protection programs to ensure that they are sufficient
to assist the elderly to at least meet the minimum standard of living. The
current monthly RM300 assistance provided could not even lift the
elderly to be out of poverty, led yet to allow them to lead a comfortable
life at retirement. At the same time, increasing the amount of the
assistance would lead to a high implication on the fiscal cost. Therefore a
comprehensive social protection able to provide adequate non retirement
income is necessary to enhance the economic wellbeing of the elderly.